Taking an RV up to Big Bear

It is not the miles, it is the climb

Big Bear is 72 miles from Hemet and we allow about an hour and three quarters. On paper that is a short run. In practice you gain more than five thousand feet in the last twenty of it.

There are two ways up. Highway 330 out of Highland is shorter and steeper with tight switchbacks. Highway 38 through Angelus Oaks is longer, wider and kinder to a trailer. If you are towing yourself, take 38.

What altitude does to your truck

The lake sits near six thousand seven hundred feet. Engines make less power up there, so a truck that pulls a trailer fine at sea level will feel slow and hot on the last few miles.

Drop a gear early rather than late. Watch the temperature gauge. Turn the air conditioning off if it climbs and open the windows instead.

Coming down matters more than going up. Pick a low gear at the top and stay in it. Brakes that get hot on a long descent stop working, and that happens on 330 every season.

Let us drive it if you have not done this

This is our most common delivery for a reason. If you have never pulled a trailer down a mountain grade, the first time should not be with your family in the truck.

We tow it up, level it, hook it up and hand you the keys at the site. You drive up in the car. It costs about two hundred dollars round trip from our yard and it removes the whole problem.

Hookups on the lake

Serrano is the campground with full hookups and it sits right on the north shore. It is the one to try for first and it books out early.

Pineknot, Holcomb Valley and Hanna Flat are dry or partial. Lovely sites under the pines, but you are on tanks and battery, which changes what you should rent.

Winter is open, with conditions

The mountain runs all year. From December through March chains can be required on both routes and they are enforced. A truck towing a trailer in chain control is a bad afternoon.

Call us before a winter trip. If the boards are up we would rather move your dates than watch you sit in the queue at the chain check.

Cold nights and frozen lines

It drops below freezing well into spring. Two things follow from that.

Run the furnace rather than a space heater, because the furnace pushes warm air into the underbelly where the tanks sit. And if you are on a water hookup overnight in the cold, disconnect the hose and run off the fresh tank instead. A frozen hose is an easy fix. A split water line inside the wall is not.

What we send up there

Motorhomes, mostly. One vehicle on that grade is easier than two, the furnace runs off the same propane, and you are not reversing a trailer into a pine stand in the dark.

If you want a trailer up there, that is fine. We will tow it for you.

Written by the WeRV yard in Hemet. Call or text (951) 289-0755 if you want a second opinion on a site before you book it.